Hudson’s Santa at the Detroit Thanksgiving Parade

Happy Black Friday! It’s an especially happy one for many since for the first time in eight years, we aren’t mourning a Lions Thanksgiving loss!! Yesterday Detroit also hosted another successful Thanksgiving Day Parade on Woodward Avenue (click for some video highlights) which got me thinking about the roots of this holiday tradition.

Thanksgiving parades were created in the early 20th Century by big department store chains to signal consumers that it was time to start thinking about Christmas shopping. The Holidays at Hudson’s video on Detroit PBS explains that the Motor City was no exception. Hudson’s Department Store provided the staff, resources to help launch the annual parade in 1924. A century later, the Parade remains one of the largest in the country.

While you have to donate to view the whole video, the trailer for Holidays at Hudson’s has some great pics & info. One cool fact is that at its apex when a quarter of a million children a year would visit Santa every year at Hudson’s, they were one of the first stores in the country to offer a choice of Caucasian, Black, Hispanic or other Santas. I’ve got a some old pics, a couple parade photos & a video of the Big Heads below!

Hudson’s Float in front of the new Hudson’s by Andrew McFarlane